Chapter 4

4.1 Introduction

If knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that, then the properties of knowledge-that are the properties of knowledge-how. In the previous chapter, we saw that knowledge-how is less susceptible to being undermined by the presence of epistemic luck than is knowledge-that. That knowledge-how and knowledge-that come apart in this way is evidence against intellectualism. This chapter investigates a different strand of epistemological evidence against intellectualism, the key ideas of which have been developed in recent work on virtue epistemology, the branch of epistemology that analyses knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues – roughly, character traits or faculties that are truth-conducive.

The line of argument canvassed in this chapter is, put simply, that knowledge-how has a certain essential property, the property of being an achievement, which knowledge-that lacks. To a first approximation, an achievement is a success that is primarily creditable to the exercise of an agent’s ability or virtue. The strategy we pursue will be to suggest that, problematically for the intellectualist, knowledge-how comes apart (in both directions) from the relevant corresponding item of knowledge-that as identified by the intellectualist in just the same kinds of cases where knowledge-that comes apart from cognitive achievement.

In a bit more detail, we will examine putative cases in which a subject has propositional knowledge without a corresponding cognitive achievement and cases in which a subject secures cognitive achievement without propositional knowledge. Then we look at how this pattern carries over to knowledge-how. The upshot is that reflection on cognitive achievement and its relation to knowledge-how supports the view that knowledge-how is not a species of propositional knowledge.

Here is the plan. Section 4.2 outlines the rationale for regarding knowledge-that as essentially involving cognitive achievement, which is a view advanced by what are called ‘robust’ virtue epistemologists – namely, those who attempt to analyse propositional knowledge entirely in terms of a truth condition and a virtue condition.1 Section 4.3 details two key lines of argument which show, contra robust virtue epistemology, that knowledge-that and cognitive achievement come apart in both directions. First, we consider an argument, put forward by Jennifer Lackey (2007b), which challenges the claim that cognitive achievement is necessary for knowledge-that. Second, we consider an argument, put forward by Kallestrup and Pritchard (2014), according to which cognitive achievement is not sufficient for knowledge-that. To the extent that these criticisms of the view that cognitive achievement is an essential component of knowledge-that are apt, a theoretical constraint materializes for the intellectualist about knowledge-how. In particular, the intellectualist is committed to predicting that knowledge-how should line up with knowledge-that rather than with cognitive achievement in these kinds of cases which show knowledge-that and cognitive achievement to come apart. Section 4.4 considers a recent argument to the effect that the intellectualist’s prediction fails here, and that in Lackey’s and Kallestrup and Pritchard’s cases, respectively, knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement rather than with knowledge-that. Section 4.5 considers objections to the line of argument advanced in Section 4.4 and outlines some replies.

4.2 Propositional knowledge as cognitive achievement: The case for

Robust virtue epistemology understands propositional knowledge as a kind of cognitive achievement.² To appreciate this view, it will be helpful to get clear first about the structure of achievements, and how achievements relate to success and ability.

Ernest Sosa (2009b) and John Greco (2010) maintain that any performance with an aim can be evaluated along three dimensions: (1) whether it is successful, (2) whether it is skilful and (3) whether the success is because of the skill. If the success is because of the skill, the performance is not merely successful, but also, an achievement.

For example, on this picture, the success of bowling a strike fails to qualify as an achievement if the strike is a result of, say, throwing the ball in a random way, with one’s eyes closed. Crucially, though, bowling skilfully and rolling a strike isn’t in itself enough to guarantee that the strike is an achievement. Suppose, for example, that you release the ball with perfect form – in a manner that would normally suffice for a sure strike – but (due to the pins being arranged in a faulty manner), on this occasion only five pins fall down initially, leaving four standing, and one pin wobbling back and forth. Bad luck! But suppose then that, by a further stroke of good luck, the wobbling pin then (via the domino effect) causes the other four to fall in just the right way, for a strike. In this case, we have a success (the strike) and the relevant ability is on display – namely, the ball was thrown in a very competent way that would ordinarily issue a strike – but (given the sheer luck that the wobbly pin knocked down the remaining four via the domino effect) the strike is not because of the ability, but is rather it is due to a very unlikely chain of events.

With reference to this way of thinking about performances and achievements, we can now appreciate the robust virtue epistemologist’s claim that propositional knowledge is a kind of cognitive achievement. Start with the idea, as Ernest Sosa (2009a, 5) puts it, that beliefs are ‘a certain kind of epistemic performance’.3 A belief is successful or accurate only if it is true. So, a particular belief token will constitute an achievement just when having that true belief is because of the agent’s cognitive abilities. According to robust virtue epistemologists, a belief amounts to knowledge just if it is true because of an agent’s cognitive abilities.

Robust virtue epistemology offers an elegant account of propositional knowledge.

(RVE-Know) S knows that p if and only if the truth of S’s belief that p is on account of her intellectual abilities or virtues.

It also has promising resources for resolving three key problems which have plagued other broadly reliabilist approaches to theorizing about knowledge. Reliabilism analyses knowledge as reliably produced true belief.⁴ Firstly, because strange and fleeting processes are not cognitive abilities which are grounded in the agent’s cognitive character, virtue-theoretic approaches to knowledge neatly sidestep Plantinga’s (1993a) brain lesion and Lehrer’s (1990) TrueTemp counterexamples to standard process reliabilism.⁵

Secondly, robust virtue epistemology has promising resources for dealing with at least some kinds of Gettier cases. Consider, again, Gettier Case 1 from the previous chapter. As this case went, Ed looks into the pasture and sees what appears to be a sheep; he forms the belief ‘There is a sheep in the field.’ Unbeknownst to Ed, what he sees is actually a sheep-shaped rock. But, fortunately, there really is a sheep hiding in the field, behind the rock. Here Ed forms his belief in a competent way and his belief is successful (true), however his belief is not successful because of Ed’s cognitive abilities. Thus, his belief is not knowledge. This is the right result.⁶

Thirdly, robust virtue epistemology offers promising resources for accounting for why propositional knowledge should be more valuable than mere true belief, a topic that we take up in more detail in Chapter 8. In short, just as achievements (successes because of ability) are prized to a greater extent than lucky successes, so beliefs which constitute cognitive achievements have a value not shared equally by successes which are not because of ability.

Thus, (RVE-Know) is a simple account of knowledge that explains a wide variety of cases, and improves upon a rival account. The merits of this account of knowledge provides a significant reason for it.

4.3 Propositional knowledge as cognitive achievement: The case against

Despite the elegance of the proposal that propositional knowledge consists in cognitive achievement, propositional knowledge and cognitive achievement have been argued to come apart in both directions (Pritchard 2012b). Some have argued that there are cases of propositional knowledge without cognitive achievement, and others have argued that there are cases of cognitive achievements that do not involve knowledge. In this section, we’ll consider first an argument, due to Lackey (2007b), to the effect cognitive achievement is not necessary for propositional knowledge; next, we’ll consider an objection, due to Kallestrup and Pritchard (2014), that cognitive achievement is not sufficient for propositional knowledge.

4.3.1 Knowledge without achievement

Consider Jennifer Lackey’s case.

chicago visitor Having just arrived at the train station in Chicago, Morris wishes to obtain directions to the Sears Tower. He looks around, approaches the first adult passer-by that he sees, and asks how to get to his desired destination. The passer-by, who happens to be a Chicago resident who knows the city extraordinarily well, provides Morris with impeccable directions to the Sears Tower by telling him that it is located two blocks east of the train station. Morris unhesitatingly forms the corresponding true belief.7

This case poses a dilemma to the robust virtue epistemologist. The dilemma, in short, is that a proponent of robust virtue epistemology must either deny that Morris attains propositional knowledge in chicago visitoror grant that he does but then explain how the item of knowledge Morris acquires is a genuine cognitive achievement, a success primarily creditable to his abilities. Neither option is very attractive because each generates an undesirable consequence.

Option	Problem
OPTION 1: Deny Morris has knowledge	Testimonial scepticism
OPTION 2: Defend Morris’s knowledge as an achievement	Knowledge explosion

Consider firstly, the option that Morris doesn’t have propositional knowledge. As Lackey (2007b, 352) notes, ‘it is nearly universally accepted that a situation such as Morris’s not only can but often does result in testimonial knowledge’. In addition to the near universal intuition that situations similar to Morris’s result in knowledge, if it is argued that Morris lacks knowledge, then scepticism is true for a vast majority of beliefs we hold on the word of others. This is a bad result.

What about the other option, that Morris’s new knowledge is a cognitive achievement? This option is plausible only insofar as Morris’s cognitive success, namely, his true belief about the location of the Sears Tower, is attributable to his own cognitive abilities. But, on this point, Lackey writes:

Are Morris’s reliable cognitive faculties the most salient part of the cause explaining why he truly believes that the Sears Tower is two blocks east?8 Not at all. Indeed, what explains why Morris got things right has nearly nothing of epistemic interest to do with him and nearly everything of epistemic interest to do with the passer-by. In particular, it is the passerby’s experience with and knowledge of the city of Chicago that explains why Morris ended up with a true belief rather than a false belief.

Lackey’s point is straightforward. It is the informant’s, rather than Morris’s, cognitive abilities that are salient in explaining why Morris’s belief is correct. Compare: in the bowling case from Section 4.2, it was the lucky domino effect, rather than the bowler’s skill, that saliently explains the strike. Indeed, in both the bowling case and the Sears Tower case what is doing the explanatory heavy lifting is something external to the agent’s own agency. This point has been made also in recent work by Kallestrup and Pritchard (2013a, 265), who note – in commenting on a variant of this case – that ‘her cognitive success is to a large degree due to factors outwith her cognitive agency, such as the cognitive powers of her informa nt and the epistemically favourable nature of the environment’.9 It’s for this reason that it is hard to see how these successes constitute achievements. If they did, then a proponent of robust virtue epistemology will have to rule-in a very wide class of cases of true belief as knowledge, including cases (e.g. including standard Gettier cases¹⁰), resulting in a kind of implausible ‘knowledge explosion’.

4.3.2 Achievement without knowledge

Just as Lackey’s counterexample reveals a problem for the view that cognitive achievement is necessary for knowledge, Kallestrup and Pritchard have challenged the connection between knowledge-that and achievement in the other direction, by adverting to what they call negative epistemic dependence. Negative epistemic dependence features in cases when an agent manifests a high level of cognitive agency (i.e. of a level that would ordinarily easily suffice for knowledge), but where the cognitive success does not amount to propositional knowledge because of factors external to the agent’s cognitive agency.¹¹

In a series of recent papers, Kallestrup and Pritchard have relied on an ‘epistemic twin earth’ thought experiment in order to illustrate negative epistemic dependence.¹² The language of ‘twin earth’ comes from a thought experiment by Hilary Putnam (1975) to demonstrate that there is a dimension of word-meaning that is not ‘in the head’. Kallestrup and Pritchard’s use of a twin-earth case, to be clear, is aimed at illustrating a thesis about knowledge, not about meaning. The case goes as follows:

epistemic twin earth Suppose Kira is on Earth, and her internal duplicate, Kira*, is on a special kind of ‘Epistemic Twin Earth’. The only difference between Kira and Kira*’s circumstances concerns their respective modal environments. While there are close possible worlds where Kira* forms a false belief that p on the same basis as in the actual world, there is no close possible world where Kira forms a false belief that p on the same basis as in the actual world.13

Kallestrup and Pritchard appeal to this kind of case to illustrate a situation where Kira and Kira*’s true beliefs, formed on earth and twin earth respectively, are equally attributable to their exercise of cognitive agency, despite the difference in their susceptibility to knowledge-undermining epistemic luck.

The crux of the idea is the following: the fact that Kira*’s modal environment undermines Kira*’s, but not Kira’s, knowledge of the target proposition does not itself seem to matter for the purposes of assessing the degree of epistemic agency exhibited by Kira and Kira* in forming the target belief. If this is right, then we’ve got a case where manifestations of cognitive agency that would ordinarily suffice for knowledge-that nonetheless (as in the case of Kira*) fail to do so, thanks to factors that are entirely external to Kira*’s cognitive agency.

Countenancing negative epistemic dependence is tantamount to rejecting the sufficiency of cognitive achievement (true belief primarily creditable to the agent’s cognitive ability) for knowledge-that. In response to the foregoing case, what are the options for the robust virtue epistemologist here? They don’t look promising, as each carries an undesirable consequence:

Option	Problem
OPTION 1: Grant Kira* has knowledge	Reject anti-luck platitude
OPTION 2: Deny Kira*’s true belief is an achievement	Achievement Scepticism

One option for the robust virtue epistemologist is to simply bite the bullet and say that, since Kira and Kira* exercise the same level of epistemic agency in their respective (correct) belief formations, then since Kira knows that p, so does Kira*. The problem with this route is that attributing knowledge to Kira* flies in the face of the Gettier intuition because Kira*’s belief is veritically lucky. More specifically, this option requires rejecting the anti-luck platitude articulated in Chapter 3.

This is not an attractive move. But, Kallestrup and Pritchard argue, neither is the other option. The other option is that Kira* lacks knowledge while Kira has knowledge even though both exhibit the same level of epistemic agency in forming the target beliefs. The putative difference is that Kira*’s true belief is not on account of her ability, even though Kira’s true belief is because of her ability. Kallestrup and Pritchard suggest that this is implausible because the both exhibit the same level of agency, by stipulation.14

Furthermore, a consequence of denying Kira* a cognitive achievement is that we’d have to also deny achievements in a range of structurally similar cases – namely, to deny that any success susceptible to environmental epistemic luck is an achievement, even when nothing goes ostensibly wrong. Attributing achievement in such a restricted fashion is tantamount to denying that many successes which plausibly count as achievements are in fact achievements.

4.3.3 The upshot

Putting this all together: simple testimony cases seem to show that one can have knowledge-that without cognitive achievement, and negative epistemic dependence case seem to show that one can have cognitive achievement without knowledge-that. To the extent that these examples are successful, it looks very much as though cognitive achievement and knowledge that come apart in both directions.¹⁵

4.4 The anti-int ellectualist argument from cognitive achievement

Lackey’s and Kallestrup and Pritchard’s arguments reveal that propositional knowledge and cognitive achievement appear to come apart from one another. In recent work, Carter and Pritchard (2015d) argue that knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement rather than with knowledge-that in versions of the friendly testimony and epistemic twin-earth cases they propose. If knowledge-how in fact lines up with cognitive achievement rather than with knowledge-that in such cases, then two important conclusions can be drawn, one negative, the other positive.

The negative conclusion is that intellectualism, which predicts that knowledge-how will not come apart from knowledge-that in these cases, is mistaken. The corresponding positive conclusion is that we will have gained some evidence for thinking that an important difference between knowledge-how and knowledge-that is that the former, but not the latter, is or involves a kind of cognitive achievement.

Carter and Pritchard’s argument comes in two key steps. The first part of the argument is to show that knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement rather than with knowledge-that in a friendly testimony case. The second part of the argument is to show that knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement rather than with knowledge-that in an epistemic twin-earth case.

4.4.1 Step 1

Let’s consider the first step of the argument. The line here is that, just as there is no barrier to Morris (in Lackey’s case) attaining testimonial knowledge-that by trusting a reliable informant in an epistemically friendly environment, likewise, there is no barrier to one attaining the kind of knowledge-that which (according to intellectualists) is to be identified with knowledge-how. Suppose, for example, that rather than asking directions to the Sears Tower, Morris (who has lived a sheltered life) asks how to do the Macarena. Morris’s informant tells Morris all 16 steps of the Macarena, in order.

Let M be the proposition that the way to do the Macarena is to follow the above instructions (call this way w). Morris, with an excellent memory, and no reason to doubt his informant, plausibly knows M and so knows that w is the way to do the Macarena. Suppose though that Morris has moderate proprioceptive dysfunction and so has difficulty executing planned movements. What Morris plausibly acquires via testimony here is knowledge-that, but not knowledge-how. Morris, after all, despite his propositional knowledge of a way to do the exercise, is utterly unable to actually do the dance. But even more, let’s suppose that (having followed way w, which Morris now knows is the way to do the Macarena) he actually does move his body in the right way. Even if this were so, given Morris’s proprioceptive dysfunction, his moving correctly – even if he intends to move in accordance with the instructions which he knows to be accurate – is plausibly not going to qualify as knowledge-how. To appreciate this point, just modify the case slightly so that while Morris knows that w is true (via testimony) and plans to execute movements in accordance with w, suppose that what causes Morris to actually move in way w is a brain lesion. Just as we don’t credit Irina with know-how in salchow (from Chapter 2) simply because she follows the correct sequence of movements, neither should we attribute know-how to Morris in such circumstances. As Carter and Pritchard put it, this is plausibly because know-how demands ‘not merely the ability to produce a certain outcome, but rather a particular kind of epistemic relation that the agent exhibits with respect to that outcome’.16 To the extent that this diagnosis of the case is right, we can see how testimony cases in friendly environments reveal knowledge-how to (like cognitive achievement) come apart from knowledge-that.¹⁷

Table 4.1: The Way to Do the Macarena

4.4.2 Step 2

What about the other direction? This is a bit more complicated. In order to show how knowledge-how, like cognitive achievement, comes apart from knowledge-that in an epistemic twin-earth case, Carter and Pritchard add an epistemic twin-earth gloss on salchow. Here’s the original case again.

salchow. Irina, who is a novice figure skater, decides to try a complex jump called the salchow. When one performs a salchow, one takes off from the back inside edge of one skate and lands on the back outside edge of the opposite skate after one or more rotations in the air. Irina, however, is seriously mistaken about how to perform a salchow. She believes incorrectly that the way to perform a salchow is to take off from the front outside edge of one skate, jump in the air, spin and land on the front inside edge of the other skate. However, Irina has a severe neurological abnormality that makes her act in ways that differ dramatically from how she actually thinks she is acting. So despite the fact that she is seriously mistaken about how to perform a salchow, whenever she actually attempts to do a salchow (in accordance with her misconceptions), the abnormality causes Irina to unknowingly perform the correct sequence of moves, and so she ends up successfully performing a salchow. Although what she is doing and what she thinks she is doing come apart, she fails to notice the mismatch.

Carter and Pritchard change the case in the following ways. Sally and her internal duplicate, Sally*, each truly believe that a particular way, w, is the way in which to successfully perform a salchow at time t. The only difference between Sally’s and Sally*’s circumstances concerns their modal environment. For Sally* (but not for Sally), there is a close possible world where way w – namely, taking off from the back inside edge of one skate – will cause a fracture in the ice, preventing a proper landing on the back outside edge of the other skate (and thus preventing a successful completion of the salchow).18

With these details in place, Carter and Pritchard (2015d) diagnose the case as follows. Given that Sally and Sally* both believe that way w is a way for each to successfully perform a salchow at t, one clear upshot of this difference in Sally and Sally*’s respective modal environments is that only Sally counts as knowing that way w will successfully lead to a salchow at t, but Sally* does not know this. This is because, for Sally*, way w could very easily not have led to a successful salchow. After all, performing the first element of w, for Sally*, could easily cause the ice to break, thereby thwarting the salchow. But the same is not true of Sally. This is just a particular instance of the more general point – outlined in Section 4.2 – that a true belief which is common to duplicate subjects on earth and twin earth can nonetheless differ in terms of whether it is subject to propositional knowledge-undermining epistemic luck.

Carter and Pritchard suggest however that it looks

… far less plausible that this fact about Sally’s and Sally*’s respective modal environments would undermine either of their knowledge how to do a salchow. After all, on twin earth, Sally* takes off from the back inside edge of one skate and lands on the back outside edge of the opposite skate after a rotation – which is exactly the way for Sally* to successfully complete the salchow on twin earth. Indeed, in terms of their manifestations of agency, Sally and Sally* are identical, in virtue of being duplicate subjects in identical local and global environments. Accordingly, it’s hard to see why Sally*’s success on twin-earth would be any less creditable to her agency than Sally’s identical success on earth.19

Carter and Pritchard clarify this point by remarking further that

It is worth emphasizing at this point that we are not relying on the simple observation that Sally* successfully lands the salchow and reasoning from this that she, ipso facto, must count as knowing how to do the salchow. Such a diagnosis, after all, would presuppose an anti-intellectualist account of knowledge how (and, in particular, that ability is sufficient for knowledge how). Rather, we are appealing to the (non-question-begging) observation that, plausibly, it would seem counterintuitive to attribute know how to Sally, but not to Sally*. With this datum in hand, we point out that if the intellectualist is right, then we must (implausibly) judge Sally, though not Sally*, as knowing-how to do the jump.²⁰

From this diagnosis of the case – according to which Sally* knows how to do a salchow but doesn’t know that w is a way for her to do the salchow – knowledge-how will (again, like we saw that cognitive achievement did) come apart from (the relevant corresponding token of) knowledge-that. The options for the intellectualist here are familiar and not particularly promising:

Obviously, granting that Sally* knows that w is a way for her to do a salchow is tantamount to countenancing unsafe (i.e. veritically lucky) belief as propositional knowledge. But also problematic here for the intellectualist is the other option, according to which the intellectualist tells us that since Sally* doesn’t know that w is a way for her to do a salchow (given the presence of environmental luck) then neither does she know how to do one. But this verdict is at best a confusing one. After all, both the doxastic and manual dimensions of Sally and Sally*’s performance are identical in that, by construction, they believe the same things and exercise the same abilities in isomorphic ways. And, Sally paradigmatically does know how to do a salchow. Thus, denying that Sally* does goes against our inclination to attribute know-how to Sally*.21 Even more, though, a kind of sceptical consequence emerges from denying that Sally* knows how to do a salchow. Consider that, if Sally* doesn’t know how to do a salchow, then neither do a wide range of other individuals who have correct beliefs about how to perform certain actions and whose correct beliefs guide their successes in a way that is unimpeachable.

Option	Problem
OPTION 1: Grant Sally* has knowledge-that	Reject anti-luck platitude
OPTION 2: Deny Sally* knows how to do a salchow	Know-how scepticism

4.5 Objections and replies

Let’s take stock. Section 4.3 offered some reasons for thinking that propositional knowledge and cognitive achievement come apart in both directions. Section 4.4 offered reasons for thinking that knowledge-how comes apart from propositional knowledge in the very same types of cases where cognitive achievement came apart from propositional knowledge.

If this is right, then a negative and a positive conclusion can be drawn. The negative conclusion is that intellectualism is in trouble. Intellectualism implies that knowledge-how will not come apart from the relevant corresponding item of knowledge-that. But this is not the only conclusion that can be drawn from the cases canvassed in Section 4.4. Given that the argument was that knowledge-how not only came apart from knowledge-that in friendly testimony and negative epistemic dependence (i.e. epistemic twin earth) cases – but moreover, that knowledge-how lined up with cognitive achievement in such cases, we have some evidence that a mark of knowledge-how not shared by knowledge-that is that the latter essentially involves cognitive achievement, or a kind of success because of ability – though we’ll continue to refine this idea.

The aim of this section will be to outline and reply to some objections to both the negative argument and the positive arguments.

4.5.1 Objections to the negative argument

What’s crucial to the negative argument is that knowledge-how pulls apart from the relevant items of knowledge-that. If this claim is true, that’s enough to count against the truth of intellectualism. The matter of whether knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement rather than knowledge-that in these cases is relevant only to the positive leg of the argument.

Practical modes of pr esentation

Let’s now examine more carefully the claim that knowledge-how comes apart from the items of knowledge-that which intellectualists identify with knowledge-how in the cases described in Section 4.4, beginning with the testimony case. One strategy of response to the argument canvassed makes use of practical modes of presentation – specifically, by claiming that the kind of knowledge-that which constitutes know-how is knowledge that hosted under a practical mode of presentation which itself entails certain dispositions. Stanley and Williamson describe practical modes of presentation as follows:

Thinking of a person as oneself entails being disposed to behave in certain ways, or form certain beliefs, given relevant input from that person. Similarly, thinking of a place as here entails being disposed to behave in certain ways, or form certain beliefs, given relevant input from that place. Analogously, thinking of a way under a practical mode of presentation undoubtedly entails the possession of certain complex dispositions. It is for this reason that there are intricate connections between knowing-how and dispositional states.22

As a point of clarification: intellectualists as such aren’t committed to the view that knowing-how is knowing-that under a practical mode of presentation. Embracing practical modes of presentation is optional for intellectualists. It has nonetheless been a popular optional strategy (e.g. Stanley and Williamson (2001) and Stanley (2011a)). This has especially been so in response to stock objections that, in a range of cases, knowing-that is not sufficient for knowing-how.²³

A common criticism of intellectualists who appeal at crucial junctures to practical modes of presentation is that the very notion of a practical mode of presentation is mysterious or elusive.²⁴ But let’s work with the basic idea for now and ask whether it helps the intellectualist in the case of Morris and the Macarena.

Superficially speaking, an appeal to practical modes of presentations looks as though it might indeed help by offering an avenue for the intellectualist to diagnose the Macarena case in the following way, by:

(i) Granting that Morris (given his proprioceptive dysfunction) doesn’t know how to do the Macarena; while also

(ii) Denying that Morris knows that w is the way for him to do the Macarena under a practical mode of presentation.

While (i) was never really at issue – of course Morris doesn’t know how to do the Macarena via testimony – it looked like trouble for the intellectualist that he nonetheless did know of way, w, that w is the way for him to do so. Enter here the intellectualist equipped with practical modes of presentation. The line would be that Morris fails to know how to do the Macarena under a practical mode of presentation, given his proprioception dysfunction, and even though he receives the testimony from a reliable source under epistemically friendly conditions (e.g. no defeaters). But then, if Morris doesn’t know that w is the way for him to do the Macarena in the sense that is identifiable with knowledge-how, then – as the intellectualist will tell us – the case is not a counterexample to intellectualism. Morris neither knows how to do the Macarena nor does he possess the kind of propositional knowledge which is to be identified with knowledge-how.

There are, we want to now suggest, several problems with this response. Firstly, as we spell out in the next chapter, it is a hallmark of propositional knowledge that it can be transmitted via testimony. If such knowledge is not transferrable in environments that are maximally hospitable, then it looks like knowledge-how is significantly different from propositional knowledge. We press this objection in the following chapter. For now, let’s consider some other responses.

Finks

But even if this general problem could somehow be resolved, another problem for the intellectualist who appeals to practical modes comes into view when we simply adjust the details of the Macarena case. Consider the following amended case featuring a finkish disposition. Finkish dispositions (e.g. Lewis 1997) are dispositions such that the conditions that would have to be met for an object’s acquiring the finkish disposition might be the very same as the stimulus conditions for that disposition.25

finkish proprioceptive dysfunction Morris* is like Morris, however, his proprioceptive dysfunction is finkish.²⁶ It is triggered only when he begins to perform the action in question. Let t ₁ be the time that Morris* receives (from a reliable source) the testimony that w is the way to the Macarena. Morris*’s finkish proprioceptive dysfunction (and so, his disposition to confuse his execution of planned movements) is dormant so that Morris is, qua recipient of the testimony presented to him, like a perfectly normal individual at t ₁. However, the act of trying to do the Macarena at t ₂ triggers his proprioceptive dysfunction.

Though Morris* does not know how to do the Macarena any more than Morris with persistent (non-finkish) proprioceptive dysfunction does, Morris* (unlike Morris) plausibly does know at t ₁ that w is the way for him to do the Macarena, under a practical mode of presentation. Here is, after all, at t1 receiving the testimony in a way that is akin to a perfectly normally functioning individual. Of course, once Morris*’s trying to perform the action at t ₂ triggers his finkish proprioceptive dysfunction, Morris no longer knows that that w is a way for him to do the Macarena under a practical mode of presentation. But the crucial point is that he does know this albeit temporarily under a practical mode a t t1.

Littlejohn’s argument

Let’s set this case aside until the next chapter and consider the intellectualist’s prospects for blocking the other leg of the negative argument – namely, by arguing that, contrary to what was suggested in Section 4, the epistemic twin earth gloss on the salchow case does not feature knowledge-how without the corresponding item of knowledge-that.

Given that maintaining that Sally* knows that w is the way for her to do a salchow runs contrary to the platitude that knowledge must be safe (i.e. not veritically lucky), we won’t consider this escape route for the intellectualist. The much more salient escape route in the case would be to defend (contra Carter and Pritchard) the following diagnosis, which involves:

(i) Granting that Sally* (given the presence of environmental luck) doesn’t know that w is a way for her to do a salchow

(ii) Denying that Sally knows how to do a salchow

While the intuition that we should credit Sally* with know-how in this case is strong, the rationale Carter and Pritchard offer is that Sally (who is unimpeachable) and Sally* by construction manifest doxastic and manual agency in a way that is isomorphic. The intellectualist critic, however, might object that this is a theory-laden reading of the situation. After all, if it is the case that the presence of environmental luck for Sally* is a difference maker with respect to whether we should attribute Sally*’s success to her agency, then perhaps Sally’s success is attributable to her abilities in a way that Sally*’s is not. And if this is right, this would speak against the kind of rationale Carter and Pritchard appeal to in their diagnosis of the case.

Here is the crux of the issue: Carter and Pritchard’s diagnosis of the case seems to take for granted a certain position about the relationship between the presence of environmental luck and the attributability of a success to a subject’s ability which Clayton Littlejohn (2014) calls compatibilism.

Compatibilism: the accuracy of a subject’s αperformance in an environmental luck case might be attributable to the subject’s relevant α-ability.27

If compatibilism is false, Carter and Pritchard’s diagnosis of the case of Sally* doesn’t go through. Littlejohn’s argument is that compatibilism is false, and incompatibilism is true:

Incompatibilism: the accuracy of a subject’s α-performance in an environmental luck case is not attributable to the subject’s relevant α-ability.²⁸

If incompatibilism is true, then this would undercut Carter and Pritchard’s rationale for why Sally* should be attributed knowledge-how, given that their rationale takes compatibilism for granted. And if that’s right, then knowledge-how doesn’t come apart from knowledge-that in the case in question because Sally* neither knows that w is a way for her to do a salchow nor does she know how to do a salchow.

And so here is the situation for the intellectualist: evidence for incompatibilism is at the same time evidence which counts against a way of reading the case of Sally and Sally* according to which knowledge-how comes apart from the relevant corresponding knowledge-that.

Are there any good reasons to be an incompatibilist? Littlejohn offers the following incompatibilist argument:

1 Success is properly attributable to ability only when the subject has been afforded the right kind of opportunity for exercising the ability and the subject’s exercise of the ability results in success.

2 In environmental luck cases, the subject has not been afforded the right kind of opportunity for exercising the relevant ability.

3 Success is not properly attributable to ability in cases of environmental luck.29

The key premise of Littlejohn’s argument for incompatibilism is (2). He offers the case of Jane to illustrate the reasoning for (2):

jane: Jane is a distant relative from a distant land. She writes to say that she’s coming for a visit. You tell her that you’ll pick her up at the airport. You don’t know what she looks like and she doesn’t know what you look like. You write her name on a card and stand outside of the arrivals gate holding it high. A woman sees the card, reads it, says ‘Hi, I’m Jane’, and you drive her home. You didn’t realize it, but there were dozens of cards there that read ‘Jane’. Owing to the lighting and the accidental placement of very tall people, she fixated on your card first, read the card, and judged (correctly) that you were her ride.³⁰

Littlejohn observes that (i) had it not been for the other cards, then the card that Jane needed would have had a distinctive look. But, given that there were other cards, it did not. Thus, he reasons, (ii) Jane wasn’t sensitive to anything that would have clued her in that, were she to have looked at any of the other cards she could have easily seen, it would have been the wrong card. He writes: ‘By writing her name on the card, you tried to give her the opportunity to identify you by sight and to tell you apart from the other strangers that she shouldn’t take rides from. You tried, but failed in that regard. You got lucky in that she found you even though she was not afforded the right opportunity.’31

Littlejohn, to reiterate, takes jane to support (2) in the incompatibilist argument, namely, the premise that in environmental luck cases, the subject has not been afforded the right kind of opportunity for exercising the relevant ability. His own diagnosis of the case, in th is context, is as follows:

I think that it is clear that this case is not a case of success that is attributable to Jane’s abilities. I also think that it is clear that the reason that this is not such a case is not that Jane lacked some general ability, such as the ability to read cards and determine whether the name on the card was ‘Jane’. If, as it seems, this case is another case of environmental luck, one that is analogous to Barney, the compatibilist treatment of that case is problematic. What’s missing from Jane, I submit, is that she lacked the opportunity she needed to classify the card she saw as the card with her name on it on the basis of how the card looks precisely because that card did not have a distinctive look that she was sensitive to. Had all the other cards read ‘Jill’, however, we would attribute success to her abilities and credit her with knowledge precisely because she had the general ability and she exercised it under appropriate circumstances.³²

If Littlejohn’s assessment of the case is right, then he’s aware that the same point applies mutatis mutandis to other environmental luck cases, such as the barn facade case and (importantly for the present purposes) to the case of Sally and Sally* in Section 4.

We can, however, imagine a variation on Littlejohn’s case of Jane which pulls in the other direction. What is the relevant reference class with reference to which sensitivity to the card’s distinctive look matters for the purpose of whether we can attribute Jane’s success to her abilities? Perhaps it’s narrower than Littlejohn is taking for granted in making his assessment about what Jane lacks. Consider the following:

jane and blane: Jane and Blane are distant relatives from a distant land. They write to say that they’re coming for a visit. You tell them that you’ll pick them up at the airport. You don’t know what they look like and they don’t know what you look like. You write their names on a card – [JANE AND BLANE] – and stand outside of the arrivals gate holding it high. Jane and Blane see the card, read it, and both say ‘Hi, I’m Jane/Blane and this is Blane/Jane’, and you drive them home. Here are two further facts about this situation. Firstly, you didn’t realize it, but there were dozens of cards there that read ‘Jane and Blane’. Owing to the lighting and the accidental placement of very tall people, they fixated on your card first, read the card, and judged (correctly) that you were their ride. Secondly, while Jane’s visual faculties and reading comprehension are unimpeachable, Blane’s are not. Blane has an astigmatic left eye coupled with a rare form of dyslexia. The astigmatic left eye causes some of the letters to appear to him in a different order than what was presented. But then, due to the dyslexia, the order of the letters on the card, as they appear to him, just happens to revert back to [JANE AND BLANE].

A proponent of compatibilism could suggest, with reference to this case, that Blane lacked the opportunity he needed to classify the card on the basis of how the card looks precisely because that card did not have a distinctive look that he was sensitive to. Though Blane identifies this card correctly, had the card read something different within a certain range of combinatory possibilities, the dyslexia + astigmatism combination would have continued to make it appear to him (incorrectly) that it said [JANE AND BLANE]. By comparison with Blane, however, it seems Jane did not lack such an opportunity to classify the card on the basis of how the card looks precisely because for Jane the card did have a distinctive look that she was sensitive to, in a way that Blane clearly was not. (For, if the letters on the card were arranged differently, Jane – but not Blane – would have noticed.)

Putting this all together: if Littlejohn is right that incompatibilism is true, then this would undermine the kind of support Carter and Pritchard take for thinking that the case of Sally and Sally* is one where know-how is present while the corresponding knowledge-that is lacking. Littlejohn’s rationale for incompatibilism, however, is grounded in his thinking that, in environmental luck cases, the subject has not been afforded the right kind of opportunity for exercising the relevant ability. But this claim gains support from a certain way of reading cases like jane, where the notion of sensitivity is playing an important role. The case of jane and blane shows how there is another equally intuitive way to read the case, one on which, with reference to sensitivity, we are not inclined to deny that subject has been afforded the right kind of opportunity for exercising the relevant ability. Given the intuitiveness (which Littlejohn grants) of the compatibilist reading of environmental luck cases (like Sally and Sally*), it seems we’d need a more compelling argument than what Littlejohn has given us for thinking incompatibilism is true. And accordingly, we’d need further argument for incompatibilism, for undercutting the argument considered in Section 4 for thinking that know-how (like cognitive achievement) comes apart from the corresponding item of knowledge-that in cases like that of Sally and Sally*.

4.5.2 Objections to the positive argument

If the negative argument, according to which knowledge-how and the relevant corresponding items of knowledge-that comes apart in same cases that (in Section 3) it was argued that knowledge-that comes apart from cognitive achievement, that’s bad news for intellectualism, which predicts that knowledge-how never comes apart from the relevant corresponding items of knowledge-that.

But if know-how really does come apart from propositional knowledge in the same kinds of cases where cognitive achievement came apart from knowledge-that, what we find is knowledge-how is positively lining up with cognitive achievement rather than knowledge-that. This is defeasible evidence for a view according to which knowledge-how, but not knowledge-that, is always a kind of achievement, or success because of ability.

One very natural objection to this positive claim is that this idea glosses over an important distinction between two kinds of potential achievements, that of:

(i) exercising one’s knowledge-how, and that of

(ii) being in a state of knowledge-how.

Take, for example, Sally* (from Section 4). The case in question focuses on Sally*’s successful performance of the salchow, and how it is attributable to her abilities. The relevant success here seemed to be her moving in the right way, the way to move when doing a salchow (as opposed to, say, a toe loop or lutz). But if Sally* is an individual to whom we’d attribute know-how in virtue of her performance, she surely does not lose this know-how when she is sitting on an airplane, without the opportunity to do a salchow.33

To the extent that we take seriously the idea that the cases from Section 4 are defeasible evidence for the view that knowledge-how, rather than knowledge-that, positively involves achievement of some kind, we need to be able to make sense of the idea of just what the achievement is, when Sally is sitting on the airplane, away from the ice rink.

In particular, let’s consider what the success component here is, when Sally* is merely in the state of knowing how to do a salchow, but not positively performing one. The success is not doing a salchow. After all, Sally* is sitting down.

One very natural way of thinking of the success component (as is germane to regarding being in a state of knowing-how is an achievement) is counterfactually: after all, even though Sally* can’t do a salchow on the plane, she’s praiseworthy in a way the ice-skating novice sitting next to her on the plane is not. For Sally* would be able to do a salchow reliably, given the normal circumstances, though the person sitting next to her could not.

Carter and Pritchard (2015d) have offered such a counterfactual rationale, and their frame of reference case is a case of famous chef who lost his arms, raised by Paul Snowdon (2004), originally as a counterexample to radical anti-intellectualism, according to which know-how just is ability possession. Snowdon poses the question of whether the chef – after the arm-losing accident – knows how to make his signature dish. Snowdon suggests yes, despite the chef’s being unable to do so, and that thus, anti-intellectualism is false.

Carter and Pritchard suggest in passing that, even though Snowdon’s chef doesn’t have the ability to make his signature dish, he still knows how to do so – namely, is in a state of knowing how to do so 34 – because in ‘the closest worlds in which Snowdon’s chef successfully makes the dish – for example, worlds where his arms are reattached – we credit the success to his impressive ability, and not to luck’.35 Compare, for instance, Snowdon’s chef with an unskilled, equally armless chef. The closest worlds in which this latter chef successfully makes the dish – for example, worlds where his arms are reattached – are worlds where credit the success to luck rather than to any ability this chef has.

This rationale extends to Sally*, when she is sitting in the airplane. Even when she is not exercising her knowledge-how (as when she performs the salchow) she is in a state of knowing-how to do so, and being in this state can be understood as an achievement given that the closest worlds in which Sally performs the salchow – for example, worlds where she is in a normal ice rink and not on a plane – we credit the success (contra Littlejohn) to her impressive ability, and not to luck.

To the extent that this is right, the evidence which the cases in Section 4 marshal in support of the view that knowledge-how (unlike knowledge-that) involves achievement is not undermined by the thought that only by exercising knowledge-how is one a candidate for achievement.

4.6 Concluding remarks

This chapter has drawn from the conceptual resources of recent virtue epistemology to canvass an overarching argument against intellectualism. Section 3 argued that – and contrary to robust virtue epistemology – friendly testimony and epistemic twin-earth cases suffice to show that knowledge-that and cognitive achievement come apart, in both directions. Building from the rationale in Section 3, Section 4 put forwarded an argument for thinking that knowledge-how comes apart from (the relevant corresponding item of) knowledge-that in the same kinds of cases in which knowledge-that came apart from cognitive achievement. From these cases, a negative and a positive conclusion were drawn. The negative conclusion is that intellectualism – which must predict that knowledge-how does not come apart from the relevant corresponding item of knowledge that in these or any other cases – is false. The positive (albeit, more tentative) conclusion, is that the fact that knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement in just the kinds of cases which show cognitive achievement to come apart with knowledge-that, is some defeasible evidence that knowledge-how (unlike knowledge-that) positively involves a kind of cognitive achievement. Section 5 Considered objections to both the negative and positive legs of this argument and showed them to be lacking. While this chapter has not attempted to give a definitive positive proposal for knowledge-how, it has however, suggested that any positive account must not only not regard knowledge-how as a kind of knowledge-that, but even more, that an ex ante constraint on such an account is that it be compatible with the thought that knowledge-how is a kind of achievement.

4.7 Further reading

• Carter, J. A. and Pritchard, D. (2015b). Knowledge-how and cognitive achievement. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91(1):181–99

• Greco, J. (2010). Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

• Lackey, J. (2007b). Why we don’t deserve credit for everything we know. Synthese, 158(3):345–61

• Littlejohn, C. (2014). Fake barns and false dilemmas. Episteme, 11(4):369–89

• Pritchard, D. (2012a). Anti-luck virtue epistemology. Journal of Philosophy, 109(3):247–79

4.8 Study questions

1 What is ‘robust’ virtue epistemology?

2 How do robust virtue epistemologists respond to traditional Gettier cases involving intervening epistemic luck?

3 How is Lackey’s argument from testimony meant to show that propositional knowledge does not essentially involve cognitive achievement?

4 What is Littlejohn’s case of Jane supposed to illustrate about the relationship between propositional knowledge, achievement and environmental luck?

5 Why do Carter and Pritchard think that knowledge-how lines up with cognitive achievement rather than with propositional knowledge in friendly testimonial cases?